North Carolina Sells Justice At The Polls

Regular visitors to this shebeen will recall that the Balanced Budget Amendment is known hereabouts as the Worst Idea In American Politics. But what, some have asked, is the Second-Worst Idea In American Politics?

At the same time, significant sums of money, totaling $1 million at last count, are flowing into the state to affect the outcome of a judicial primary, "usually a pretty sleepy enterprise," says Bert Brandenburg, executive director of Justice at Stake, a nonpartisan group that monitors judicial elections. Money buys airtime, and across North Carolina on 10 stations, incumbent state Supreme Court Justice Robin Hudson, a Democrat, is labeled in a television ad "not tough on child molesters." That's based on her dissent in a narrowly decided 4-3 ruling that said satellite monitoring of some sex offenders was not a new punishment, which would be unconstitutional, even though it did not exist at the time of their offense."This is a way of trying to bully the bench," says Brandenburg. "Nasty campaign ads send a message to judges that as they make rulings on controversial cases, they may get ads against them down the line, and that's not what they should be thinking about. They're supposed to focus on facts and the law."

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Why anyone would argue seriously that we should toss the administration of justice in this country into our money-sodden, post-John-Roberts political system is beyond me. Back before it became newly insane, though, North Carolina almost had developed a system that almost made sense.

Over a decade ago, a fund was created using attorney fees to provide minimal campaign financing through state grants to qualifying candidates. The program was enormously popular; 80 percent of judges who ran used it, and it helped diversify the bench with more women and African-Americans.

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We can't have any of that, now, can we?

But there was always ideological opposition from the right on free speech grounds...

Yes, and I am sure that the diversification of the N.C. bench had nothing to do with this opposition, and I am also the Tsar of all the Russias.

...and when Republican Gov. Pat McCrory took office in January 2013, one of the first things his budget director did was zero out public financing for judges.

At which point, of course, the Day Of The Floodgates arrived in Washington.

Much of the money flowing in from the conservative side, from Koch Industries and the Washington, D.C.-based Republican State Leadership Committee, is funneled through a local group, Justice for All North Carolina. "State courts are the engine of day-in and day-out justice," where 98 percent of cases are decided, says Brandenburg. "It's like the fishing hole that gets discovered. A whole generation of judges is in a system they didn't sign up for."

It is important to remember that the legislature of the newly insane state of North Carolina has been busy passing all kinds of batshit crazee laws, usually at the behest of one Art Pope, who is rather a local Koch Brothers all by his lonesome, and without whom, Pat McCrory would be back at Duke Energy, polluting rivers and stonewalling about it. You will be shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that Pope is arranging that the cases that may arise from the batshit crazee laws he has sponsored could be heard by judges he also sponsored.

In the supposedly nonpartisan primary, Hudson faces challenges from two Republicans, one from the mainstream of the party, Superior Court Judge Eric Levinson, the other, Jeanette Doran, a late entry into the race. Doran has no judicial experience and is the former executive director of the North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law. The nonprofit group is backed by Art Pope, a wealthy businessman who finances conservative candidates and causes, and who McCrory named budget director after taking office 16 months ago.

From an aesthetic standpoint, you really have to admire how perfect the takeover of the political system in North Carolina is, how smoothly the engine of corruption purrs along. And, as usual, we have the words of Justice Anthony Kennedy to reassure us, and to make things all better:

"Independent expenditures do not lead to, or create the appearance of, quid pro quo corruption."